


The Entwined

by InquisitorM96



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gayyyyyyyyy, M/M, Overwatch - Freeform, Re-upload
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InquisitorM96/pseuds/InquisitorM96
Summary: This is an edited version of three ' chapters' I uploaded a month ago. Trust me when I say it reads a lot better now.Hugo is an artist watching the end of his career grow closer. It seems Paris is where he will experience his final failure, then he can finally retire - somewhere green and alone. But when he meets a kindred soul at his exhibition, his world is flung into something bright and... unalone.Hugo is an OC of mine but please give him a chance ;u;
Relationships: Siebren de Kuiper/Hugo





	The Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you everyone who read and liked the old chapters. All the tulips in here are dedicated to you, Finn.  
> Comments and questions are welcome!!!

Hugo stood in the gallery’s dimmest corner, fidgeting. Complex textile artworks covered the walls; fabrics spread tightly across a frame and stitched, painted and pulled until every single one of the pieces made a spiral. Some were crooked, some needed multiple parts to make a whole; some shimmered and others were made of entirely black thread, paint and paper, but all among them ended circling back in on themselves. Well-dressed older folk milled about the space with champagne glasses perched in their hands, pretending to be touched while they verbally tore his technique to pieces. The quiet man in his plain sweater and dark jeans tried to ignore them. This was the biggest exhibition he’d managed to land in his entire career. The silver tips at his temples reminded him that the same career would be ending soon. Maybe once he died one of the fucking works would actually sell.   
He took a glass of champagne from a waiter, thanking them with a nod and watching the others. You could always tell who considered themselves an art critic. It was easy: long, strangely cut skirts, severe hair-cuts and crimson at least somewhere on their person – usually glasses. The rest were peeping toms – normal folk on the way back from dinner somewhere nice who wanted to end the night feeling enlightened by pointing at things they didn’t understand.   
His grip tightened on the glass before he sighed. That wasn’t fair to them. None of it was, in the end. He walked up to his favourite piece – a sheet of black fabric beaded and twisted into a spinning downward spiral. The ebony black beads glinted in the barn-door lights. A tall man strode up, stopping next to him. He wore a neat knitted sweater and warm brown dress pants. Hugo thought he looked like a university professor. All he was missing were the leather elbow patches. He considered asking what the man thought, but the tall man spoke before he could punish himself.   
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said softly. Hugo turned to him, visibly confused. The artist hadn’t heard positive words about his work in a long time. He tried to remain collected.   
“If you say so,” he replied, his heart pounding.  
The taller man reached out, pointing with a slender pinky finger and hovering just above the artwork, tracing the lines down their twisting path. “See what they have done? A perfect balance between the inaccuracy of humanity and the coiling, perfect pattern of the universe.” He stepped back, taking it in and smiling. The smile lines at the corner of his eyes reached back to the silver of his hair. “It’s perfectly lovely, though I suppose the artist intended it to be different,” the professor admitted.   
“No,” Hugo replied, his mouth racing ahead of his mind. The tall man looked down at him interestedly. “Uh… I agree. About the artist. He… I think he meant to create what you see. The, uh, universe and the…” His cheeks flushed, and he gave up his poor ruse. “I’m he – and it means to me what it means to you,” Hugo revealed quietly. “All of them,” he said, gesturing with his arm. “All of them are expressions of the soul, finding the divine in it. And one’s soul is inextricably linked to the universe and the universe is… vertigo.” He closed his mouth abruptly. When he tried to explain his art, the listener thought him more insane than enlightened. He’d created the designs for these pieces in moments of derealisation when only music and the rocking of his own body made sense, and as such their true meanings were not necessarily explainable to a normal mind. But the tall man’s eyes flickered with recognition.   
“Vertigo,” he repeated, turning to face Hugo. “Yes, that explains the feeling well. Please, I am Siebren de Kuiper,” he said, holding out his large, knuckled hand.   
“Hugo O’Connor.” They shook.  
“So I assumed – your name is on the posters,” he chuckled. Hugo felt his heart skip a beat.   
“How long have you been creating artwork professionally?” Siebren asked, moving on to the next piece.   
“As long as I could competently hold a brush I suppose, going on 30 years. Though, the spirals came around my early twenties. I served a stint at Echo Lodge Psychiatric,” he admitted, looking down. “Most of my early spiral work was conceived there. When I got out, I finally had access to the materials I needed, and I began working.” Hugo looked up at de Kuiper. “What about you? What do you do to get by?”   
“To get by?” he mused. “I suppose I attend to my occupation everyday.”   
“Okay, then what do you do for fun?” he asked, hands behind his back. Siebren’s eyes looked back to the artwork in front of them.  
“I study this. Not art - the universe. All its swirling brilliance, its mathematical perfection, its… vertigo,” he smiled. “As an astrophysicist,” he clarified. Hugo’s eyes widened.  
“That’s incredible! What field? Tell me, do you know the reason the spiral is a universal pattern? I focus mainly on the emotion of it; I’m afraid I have no head for numbers.”  
Siebren thought for a moment. “Not in a strict sense, though there are many patterns to be found in the fabric of our reality. I find the spiral is more of, as you said, the emotion of it.” 

Hugo looked around. The gallery had begun emptying now, the telltale rubble of dropped pamphlets and tracked dirt littering the floor. The manager was looking at his watch.  
“Do you…” Hugo felt his tongue in his throat and cleared it. He wasn’t one for words at the best of times. “Would you care for a drink?” He gestured towards the door, his hands shaking only slightly. The taller man’s eyes flashed with something he couldn’t place - curiosity? Knowing his luck, probably disgust. He braced himself for the rejection of no or the cold dread of actually. But instead when he looked up, Siebren had smiled and nodded, already moving toward the entrance. Hugo broke free of his temporary disbelief with some effort before hurrying after him. “Uh, there’s this nice place around the corner, Les Deux Escargot,” he rushed.   
“The Two Snails… the spiral reveals itself again,” de Kuiper, grinned. Hugo couldn’t contain the blush he felt spread across his cheeks.   
“Maybe those little things hold the secrets of the universe,” he said.  
“Someone should ask them,” replied the doctor, holding the door.

\---

It was a week later they met again. The artist didn’t want to presume how Siebren felt, but he knew his own heart had been doing somersaults since the exhibition’s opening night. Even if the other man felt no romantic interest, Hugo had found a warm and fascinating soul – one who could talk to him of twirling galaxies, cosmic patterns and theories with five-syllable words until the sun crested the city skyline. The bartender at The Two Snails had let them stay longer than closing time, packing up chairs and wiping tables around them as the two swapped stories, exclamations and smiles. When they left, the sky had an hour or so until it paled with dawn. Siebren had walked him home, both silent as the humming of the Siene filled their ears. A polite goodnight, and exchanging of contacts and the most magical evening of his life had reached a soft and sleepy end. Behind his studio door Hugo had braced himself and sighed, content with the world for the first time in years. 

The next morning, a polite message thanking him for the evening and would Hugo care to accompany him to the botanical gardens next Sunday? The artist had to hold himself back from replying too quickly. His daughter had said that was a sign of desperation. He messaged her back asking when she became so knowledgeable about boys. “When I married one,” she replied, “…though I still don’t understand a lot of you.” He’d laughed at that. Her birthday was coming up. She’d been talking about renovating their kitchen; maybe a nice teapot – you couldn’t go wrong with a beautiful teapot. 

The botanical gardens of Paris were ones of unparalleled beauty – orchid houses in the shapes of gleaming silver spires, flower beds that floated along with the movement of the sun… It was a marvel. The gardens were a place of peace and inspiration for Hugo, who visited them regularly whenever he encountered artist’s block- or just needed a walk to keep his frame from growing ever-softer. He loved the greenhouses the most though, filled with their curled, lush ferns and fragile brilliantly colored flowers. It was in his favourite glasshouse that they met. He was busy sketching a maidenhair fern on one of the benches when a pair of neat brown leather shoes stepped into his view. “Beautiful,” Siebren said quietly. Hugo looked up quickly, blushing.   
“Pardon?” The doctor pointed down at the paper with a long pinky.   
“Your drawing – it’s hardly accurate, but somehow you convey the fragility very well. It’s beautiful.” Hugo drew a breath, closing his sketchbook and slipping it into his bag.   
“Thank you,” he replied, standing. “Would you like to walk?” Siebren nodded and smiled.   
Hugo took him along the path with the most tulips. At the time he wasn’t sure if it was because he liked tulips or because Kuiper was Dutch. Afterwards he would conclude he was simply taking his usual route out of nervous habit. They walked for almost an hour, taking in the flowers and fresh spring air. It still held the nip of winter’s fang.  
“Where do you come from, Hugo?” Siebren asked as his eyes flicked across the clouds.  
“Ballinora, Ireland. Down near Cork. Beautiful country, I miss it every day.”  
“It’s not a far trip,” Siebren pointed out.   
“Yes, but to chose between Ireland and France is a large task.” He gestured at the wonders around them. “Home will wait for me, I will return in time. Until then, I remain here in the land of spring sunshine and wine.” The doctor smiled. “What about you?” Hugo asked. “Where were you born?”  
“Amsterdam,” he said simply. “I grew up by the river with my father.” He didn’t seem to want to speak about it.   
“Amsterdam!” Hugo exclaimed, trying to steer the conversation. “I’ve always wanted to visit.”  
Siebren nodded. “You should – it has beautiful libraries, and much architecture of the past has been preserved. There are some buildings that have been kept standing since the eighteen hundreds.” They both walked in silence for a bit before Siebren continued quietly. “I think… you would very much enjoy drawing them. And the plants and the people.”   
Hugo blushed. “I’m sure I would. I will have to go someday, maybe this summer.” The doctor smiled at that.  
“Excellent, I’d be glad to give you a tour, should we happen to visiting at the same time.”

They left the botanical gardens, walking once more by the Seine. The sun was drooping low and Hugo suggested they stop and eat at one of the many restaurants. Siebren agreed and led him to one that had a sort of pier where they could eat above the water. It was here Siebren began to talk about his work. Together with a Russian couple, he was determining how to bend gravity to the human will. “It is a harness, you see,” he explained, gesturing his large hands over the seasoned salmon. “On a large enough scale one could move entire machines, houses, even skyscrapers! And much more practical uses – we could lift people en mass out of a shipwreck, lift rubble, even block a tidal wave. With just a flick…” He made a motion like he was tossing a ball upwards. “…of the wrist.” Hugo watched him, breathless.   
“That’s incredible! But surely it’s very dangerous?”  
Siebren nodded gravely. “That’s why it must not get into the wrong hands. We keep all our information and test locations very close to our chests,” he said, tapping the middle of his torso. “Most of the mathematics are finished already, we are working on the practicals now.” He lowered his voice. “That’s all I can tell you for now though, het spijt me.”  
“I’m fascinated by anything you can tell me of such an interesting topic – no matter how small,” he replied. “I doubt my layman mind would understand how it all worked if you gave me the detail anyway.”   
Siebren looked at him with those curious gray eyes. “You could always learn. You’re a smart man, Hugo. You see things that others can’t.”  
The artist laughed, trying to brush it off. “I wouldn’t make a good scientist.”  
“Perhaps not,” Siebren acquiesced. “But, I think, you would make a wonderful second set of eyes.” Across the table, their fingers brushed together.  
It would not be the first or the last time Hugo’s heart skipped a beat that evening.

\---

Sitting tiredly, Siebren looked down at the charts and notepaper covering his floor. It didn’t make sense – he had calculated everything perfectly. Did I miss a decimal point somewhere? Spinning in his chair he turned to the machine on his enormous workbench. A little thing, but splitting open with potential. A small blue light emitted from the slender, black base box, and above it was a hollow, geometric cage held aloft by duel vices. He fiddled with a switch or two, resetting the contraption. A flicker of blue light, then nothing. Not a damned thing. He kicked one of the thick table legs and ran a hand through his thinning hair, his eyes drawn back and wide with frustration. The equations were correct… the problem must lie elsewhere. He lunged back down to the papers, flicking through test reports and estimations from the Tobelstein’s.   
Lada entered holding her glasses on her forehead and looking at a clipboard. “Singh tried India’s reactor about an hour ago,” she said in her thick accent. “Says he got a ‘small blurring motion’ inside the Sphere. He’s definitely wrong – all our math is the same. Unless he’s hiding something, which I suppose is exactly what we would…” She trailed off, looking up at the crawling figure of de Kuiper. “Siebren, what are you doing?”  
He looked up from the floor, his mind pulled from its confusion. For a split second, he thought he heard a voice behind him, chiding him. Get off the floor. The tall man stood, straightening his clothes and back. “I lost a contact,” he said calmly, gesturing to the mess around his feet. “No luck.”  
Lada Tobelstein nodded at him, doubt clear on her face. “Uh-huh. Okay,” she said, moving on, “we have to get better results than Singh or we’re facing de-funding.”  
“I thought we were in talks with Volskaya?”  
Lada frowned. “We were, but something’s shaken their faith. I’m working on it.” She looked over to the small gravitic reactor on their workbench and sighed. “We need something big to happen soon.”   
Siebren looked down at her, imagining the untold damage this machine could cause left unchecked. “Be careful what you wish for, vriend.”

They worked through lunch, then supper. Nicholai showed up at about six, reporting that India’s reactor was down. It would take them about a week to fix it. Lada had grinned about that. Then they all went silent with concentration again.  
Siebren closed his eyes, trying to ignore the constant headache pulsing dimly behind his eyes. He pinched his nose and looked out the darkened window, eyes blurry from reading numbers all afternoon. “Didn’t you two have a meeting with Bisset?” They shot up, Lada checking her watch.  
“Nyet!” she cried, grabbing her bag and running out the door. Nicholai followed, keycards jingling. Siebren chuckled sympathetically, turning back down to his work. The dark marks on the page had officially begun to bleed together, his arrows and circles and carried numbers mixing into a dark, swirling wave of sigils. Time for home. He thought of his apartment – grey and blue, always dark whenever he was there; sometimes he slept in the lab to avoid going home to it. He didn’t entertain such notions tonight – his back ached from the last time he forwent his bed. Siebren smiled sadly. Not a young man anymore. He slipped his leather bag over his broad shoulders and pulled his thick scarf taut. A few Restricted Access card swipes later and he stood outside in the chilly night air. Spring was still shrugging off winter. A buzz came from his pocket. Then another. Then five more. Then silence. Reception was cut off in the building to decrease interference with the various contraptions being worked on within and a communication tsunami was a nightly occurrence. He almost didn’t bother looking, but ended up doing so out of habit. One from a friend with a text reference he requested and… four more from Hugo.

7:13 pm - Hey, are you still coming tonight?  
7:32 pm - It’s okay if you can’t make it, just let me know asap. A little tulip at the end of that one.  
8:00 pm - Siebren?  
8:23 pm – They made me give up the table. Hope you’re okay. Please get back to me when you can.

His face grew pale and his hand tightened around his phone. It was 10:23. He’d set an alarm so he wouldn’t miss it! How…? His mind raced as he began walking, quicker and quicker until he was in a light jog. He flicked back through the past few hours, memories flying past like train cars until he found it – a blurry recollection of hitting the ‘silence’ button. He’d been buried in a promising article on varying the gravitational constant when the ringing pierced his ears. He didn’t even think. Didn’t even consider him. The doctor felt a wrenching in his chest and panted from his run, looking at where he was. Marais district. Good, he was close. Breathing deeply, he picked up his pace again, his feet leading him along a now familiar route. He’d walked Hugo home seven times now. Tonight would have made it the eighth. His heart pounded, the headache forgotten and replaced with worries about cardiac arrest.  
Not a young man anymore.

He turned down Hugo’s street, passing people with hurried apologies and checking his watch. 10:30. Over three hours. That wrenching feeling again before he arrived at the run-down little apartment building. The doctor pressed the buzzer, glossy with the touch of oily humans. Silence. He pressed again. This time, after eleven seconds, a voice responded through the crackling speaker. “Yes?”  
“Hugo,” he breathed. Silence. “Hugo, please, I…” The door made a piercing call, and its lock turned bright green. Thanking him silently, Siebren hurried through it, taking the steps two at a time. He had never been inside the building, always leaving the other man at the front door. He knew the number though and followed them down, counting as he passed. Finally, sweating and panting and looking very foolish for a man of fifty six, he stood in front of Hugo’s door, clutching his bag strap tightly beneath his huge hands. A few seconds of hesitation from both parties - he could see the shadow of the artist behind the door. Siebren made to knock as it opened to reveal Hugo, clad in a paint streaked sweater and pyjama pants. His eyes looked red, but not too much – as though his mind had moved on from the pain faster than his body. Siebren tried to read the expression on his face. It seemed to be a mixture of pain, disappointment and worry. But above all of those, hope.   
Hope that it had been some great emergency that distracted his mind, hope that it hadn’t been a woman or someone who would take their walks away from him. Hope that Siebren wasn’t here to say they should stop meeting. The doctor felt like his chest would give in from emotion. He wanted to apologise and explain and apologise again. Time flies, mijn liefde, he wanted to explain, excuse. Instead, he rushed forward faster than his mind could think and gripped the artist by his arms, kissing him with a passion he hadn’t felt for anything but well-written thesis in all his years. Hugo tensed immediately, his hands flexing uselessly by his side before relaxing and letting himself be tipped slightly backwards by Siebren. The intensity faded, replaced with the exchange of warmth between them. The doctor’s grip relaxed and he slid his arms fully around him, embracing Hugo, eyes closed.   
“Siebren,” he murmured, tone questioning.  
“Please, mijn hart, let me hope.”   
Hugo smiled, pulling gently away. He reached up to cup the tired doctor’s face. “You need not hope for what you already have. Though, are you certain you want this?”   
A look of confusion flashed across Siebren’s face. He remembered their beloved walks, the long nights drinking in quiet bars, the brush of fingers and the blush of cheeks… the stars being reflected in those warm eyes.  
“To be honest, I cannot fathom a world where I could not,” he replied, pressing his forehead against Hugo’s. There they stood in the doorway, entwined in each other and opening themselves to a future that until two minutes (and eleven seconds) ago seemed impossible.


End file.
